THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 



^\^^ SPEECH 



kr 



OF 



HON. HENRY WILSON, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS. 




IjST the senate, FEBRUARY 18, 1856. ,.,, 

f 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

PUBLISHED BY THE KEPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
STEREOTYPE EDITION. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PEINTERS. 
1866. 



THE STATE OF AFFAIRS U KANSAS. 



SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON. 



A message from the President of the United States 
was received by the Senate, enclosing a report 
from the Secretary of State, on the existing state 
Df afiairs in Kansas. 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, the Senator 
from Connecticut [Mr. Toucey] closes his 
speech with the iissuraplion, ihat there niiiy be 
tliose in the country who do not wish the 
President to preserve order ; and he is pleased 
to say, that, if the Executive docs so, their 
" vocation" will be gone. Let me say to the 
Senator from Connecticut, that the " vocation" 
of those to whom he alludes is not fawning, 
abject servility to power. No sir, they do not 

" bend to power, and lap its milk." 

If the Senator from Connecticut alludes to 
those who have opposed the uncalled-for and 
wanton repeal of the Missouri prohibition ; if 
he alludes to those wlio condemn the policy 
of the Administration in Kansas ; if he in- 
tends to charge the intelligent, patriotic men 
who sympathize with the wronged and out- 
raged people of Kansas, bravely struggling to 
preserve their firesldt's and altars, their prop- 
erty and lives, against the armed aggressions 
of lawless invasions from Missouri, with a 
disposition to violate or resist the laws of the 
country, or to cherioh sectional animc^iity and 
strife, he makes a charge unsupported by even 
the shadow of truth ; and here, and now to 
his face, and before the Senate and ihe co.un- 
try, I pronounce the charge utterly unfound- 
ed. If he intends, sir, to insinuate a charge 
of that character against me, I promptly meet 
it, and here and now before the Senate I brand 
it as it deserves. 

The Senator from Connecticut, with an air 
of confident assurance, calls for facts. Evi- 
dently possessed with the vast knowledge em- 
bodied in these documents sent here by the 
Executive, the Senator assumes the air and 
tone of one entitled to speak by authority, and 
he invites us to deal in f^icts. Sir, he shall 
have facts ; for it so happens that the friends 
of those who are struggling in Kansas to pro- 
tect their lives, their property, their all, against 
unauthorized power and lawless violence, 
know something of the facts which have trans- 
pired there. All knowledge, sir, of affairs in 
Kansas is not in the keeping of the Executive 



and his Senator from Connecticut. The tree 
of knowledge, sir, was not planted in the 
Executive garden ; and I sometimes think, if 
it had been, its forbidden fruits would have 
been more secure than were the fruits of that 
tree plucked by our first parents. 

The Senator from Connecticut commends ns 
to the consideration of this correspondence: 
and the Senator from California [Mr. Wellkr] 
asks us to print ten thousand extra copies of 
it, to be scattered broadcast over the land. I 
now say — and I can establish what I say be- 
fore any committee of investigation, so that 
no man can question the declaration — that 
this correspondence utterly and totally mis- 
states and misrepresents the state of affairs in 
Kansas. These documents, sir, are made up 
of telegraphic dispatches, of letters, of state- 
ments, of orders, written by Governor Shan- 
non and others, on the rumors of the hour, in 
a large Territory, at a time when the people 
were deeply agitated by all sorts of reports 
that flew over the land in rapid succession. 
We are called upon now to publish these ru- 
mors — rumors that turned out to be e.x;agge- 
rated or false — rumors recognised and admit- 
ted to be false by the Governor of the Terri- 
tory, in his conversation and in his treaty with 
the citizens of Lawrence. Yes, sir, the Senate 
is now called upon to print and send over the 
country, as official documents, these stupen- 
dous misrepresentations of facts. They will 
carry a gigantic falsehood to the American 
people. He who reads only these documents 
has no accurate knowledge, no true concep- 
tion, of the actual condition of affairs in Kan- 
sas at the time covered by them. 

The year of 1854 opened upon a vast terri- 
tory, lying in the heart of the continent, ex- 
tending from thirty-six degrees thirty minutes 
on the south, to the possessions of the British 
Queen on the north ; from the borders of Mis- 
souri, Iowa, and Min* '^sota, on the east, to 
the summits of the Rocky Mountains on the 
west. Over that territory, larger than the 
empire of Napoleon when, at the head of the 
grand army, he gazed upon that "ocean of 
flame" that wrapt the minarets, turrets, and 
towers, of the ancient capital of the Czars, 
the Republic, on the 6th of March, 1820, en- 
graved in letters of living light the sacred 



words, "Slavery shall be and is forever pro- 
hibited !" Slavery, with hungry gaze, glared 
upon the forest and prairie, hill and moun- 
tain, lake and river, of that magnificent re- 
gion it was forever forbidden to enter. Fix- 
ing its glittering eye upon that paradise, 
consecrated by the nation to Freedom and free 
institutions for all, hallowed forever to free 
men and free labor, the Slave Power, in the 
person of the late President of the Senate, the 
soul of these border aggressions, demanded 
that this heritage of free labor should be 
opened to the withering footsteps of the 
bondman. Sir, with hot haste you grasped 
this domain of Freedom, and flung it to the 
Slave Propaganda. Sir, your Administra- 
tion, in answer to the stern protest of the free 
laboring men of the country, whose heritage 
it was, mocked them with the delusive promise 
that the actual settlers were to shape, mould, 
and fashion the institutions of Kansas and 
Nebraska. Sir, two years have passed, and 
your "squatter sovereignty" is proved a de- 
lusion and a cheat. Laws, more inhuman 
than the code of Draco, forced upon the ac- 
tual settlers of Kansas by armed invading 
hosts from Missouri, are now to be enforced 
by United States dragoons. The Consti- 
tution, framed by a Convention of the Peo- 
ple, is spurned from the halls of Congress ; 
the Convention that formed it is pronounced 
" spurious" liy the Senator from Connecticut ; 
and the people who ratified it are branded 
as traitors by the Administration and its 
subalterns. 

By the theory of the Kansas-Nebraska act, 
Mr.'President, 'the actual settlers were to de- 
cide the transcendent question, whether Free- 
dom should bless, or Slavery curse, the virgin 
soil of those vast Territories lying in the cen- 
tral regions of the continent. The sons of 
the free States — of Puritan New England, of 
the great central States, i\nd of the North- 
west — men who call no man master, and who 
wish to make no man a slave, were invited to 
plant upon the soil of Kansas those institu- 
tions that have blessed, beautified, and adorn- 
ed the homes of their childhood. The sons of 
the South — from regions once teeming with 
the rich fruits of fields, now blasted, blighted, 
and withered, by the sweat of untutored and 
unrewarded toil — were invited to plant, if 
they could, the institutions that had dishon- 
ored labor in their own native States, upon 
the unbroken soil of Kansas. Sir, the people 
of the North and the people of the South had 
a legal and moral right to go there, when they 
pleased, how they pleased, and with whom 
they pleased ; in companies or in single 
families ; under their own direction, or under 
the auspices of Emigrant Aid Societies, in the 
North or the South. 

Sir, the honorable Senator from Missouri, 
[Mr. Geyer,] in his remarks the other day 
upon the resolution of inquiry submitted by 
me, made the extraordinary declaration that 
the "disorders" which he admits have ex- 
isted on the borders "are to be attributed to 
an extraordinary organization, called an 



' Emigrant Aid Society ' — the first attempt in 
the history of this country to tfike possession 
of an organized Territory, and exclude from it 
the inhabitants of other portions of the 
Union." I am amazed that the Senator from 
Missouri should make such a declaration on 
the floor of the Senate. When and how did 
the "Emigrant Aid Society" "attempt to 
take possession of an organized Territory, and 
to exclude from it the inhabitants of other 
portions of the Union?" Will the Senator 
tell us when that "attempt" was made? 
Will he tell us where it was made? Will he 
tell us how it was made? Here and now I 
challenge the Senator to give us one single 
fact to sustain the declaration he has so un- 
justly made against men of stainless purity. 
The Senator avows that men from his State 
"have passed over the borders," but they 
have done so (he tells us) "to protect the 
ballot-box from the attempt of armed colonists 
to control the elections there." When and 
how were the ballot-boxes assailed by " armed 
colonists " from the North? I call upon the 
Senator from Missouri, I challenge any Sena- 
tor, to furnish one fact, one single authenti- 
cated fact, to sustain this assumption. 

Sir, the Emigrant Aid Society of New Eng- 
land has violated no law, human or divine. 
Standing here, sir, before the Senate and the 
country, I challenge the Senator from Mis- 
souri, or any other Senator, to furnish to the 
Senate one fact, one authenticated fact, to 
show that the Emigrant Aid Society has per- 
formed any illegal act, any act inconsistent 
with the obligations of patriotism, morality, 
or religion. Sir, the President of the United 
States has arraigned before the country these 
Emigrant Aid Societies. The organs of the 
Administration have assailed them, and now 
the Senator from Missouri here, on the floor 
of the Senate, renews the assault. Sir, I call 
upon, I defy any supporter of the Administra- 
tion, anj- apologist of Atchison, Stringfellow, 
and their followers, to give us one act of the 
directors of the New England Emigrant Aid 
Society hostile to law, order, and peace. I 
know most of these gentlemen, thus wantonly 
assailed, and I know them to be law-abiding, 
order-loving, conservative men. I defy the 
Senator from Missouri, the Senator from Con- 
necticut, or the Chief Magistrate at the other 
end of the avenue, to show, here or elsewhere, 
that the Emigrant Aid Society ever violated a 
law of this country', or performed an act which 
could not receive the sanction of the laws of 
God and man. Sir, they have sent no paupers 
or criminals to Kansas. They have simply 
organized a system bj- which persons wishing 
to go to Kansas msij go in small companies, 
and, by going together and starting at a 
particular time and place, may have the cost 
of their fore reduced about thirty-three per 
cent. This company has built a hotel in 
Kansas ; has sent some saw-mills there ; has 
aided in establishing schools and churches. 
That is the extent of their offence — no more, 
no less. 

Mr. President, on the 29th of July, 1854, 



withia sixty days after the passage of the 
Kansiis-Nehraska act, a rueetincc was called at 
Weston, Missouri, by the " Platte County 
Self-Defensive Association." Resolutions 
were adopted, declaring that the association, 
whenever called upon by any of the citizens 
of Kansas Territory, will hold itself in readi- 
ness to assist in removing any and all emi- 
grants who go there under the auspices of the 
Northern Emigration Aid Societies. 

Before the feet of the first emigrants who 
went there under the auspices of the Emigrant 
Aid Society pressed the soil of Kansas, this 
"Platte County Self-Defensive Association, " 
under the guidance of B. F. Striugfellow, pro- 
claimed to the world its readiness to cross in- 
to Kansas and remove actual settlers from 
their new homes. Under the lead of this law- 
less as.sociation, other meetings were held in 
Western Missouri, and resolutions adopted 
in favor of carrying Slavery into Kansas, 
and in denunciation of emigrants from the 
free States who should go there under the 
auspices of the Emigrant Aid Societies. 

On the 9th of August, more than two 
months after the Kansas-Nebraska act was 
passed, a few persons went into that Territory 
from the East. They went there under the 
auspices of that society referred to the other 
day so unjustly by the Senator from Missouri. 
Early in the autumn of 1854, the Missouri 
guardians of Kansas crossed over into the 
Territory, and, by force of arms, endeavored 
to drive from their homes the few persons who 
had begun the little settlement at Lawrence. 
But these Platte County Association heroes 
found a little band of about thirty New Eng- 
land men, under the lead of Charles Robin- 
son — the Miles Standish of Kansas — ready to 
meet the issue with powder and ball ; and 
they retreated to their homes preferring to live 
to fight another day. 

The Senator from Connecticut referred with 
an air of triumph to the election which took 
place on the 20th day of November, 1854. On 
that day, Mr. Whitfield was elected — and tri- 
umphantly elected — a Delegate from that Ter- 
ritory. No one ever questioned the fact that 
he had a majority of the legal voters of the Ter- 
ritory on that day; but, in addition to that 
fact, men familiar with the Territory declare 
that he received the votes of more than one 
thousand inhabitants of Missouri, who crossed 
the line and voted on that occasion. 

I hold in my hand, sir, a paper drawn up 
and signed by General Pomeroy — a gentle- 
man of intelligence, of personal honor, whose 
veracity no man who knows him can ever 
question. From this memorial, addressed to 
Congress, I quote the following words con- 
cerning the election of the 29th of November, 
1854: 

"The first ballot-box that was opened upon 
' our virgin soil was closed to us by overpow- 
' ering numbers and impending force. So 
' bold and reckless were our invaders, that 
' they cared not to conceal their attack. They 
' came upon us, not in the guise of voters, to 
' steal away our franchise, but boldly and 



' openly, to snatch it with a strong hand. 
' They came directly from their own homes, 
' and in compact and organized bands, with 
' arms in hand and provisions for the expedi- 
' tion, marched to our polls, and, when their 
' work was done, returned whence they came. 
' It is unnecessary to enter into the details ; it 
' is enough to say that in three districts, in 
' which, by the most irrefragable evidence, 
' there were not one hundred and fifty voters, 
' most of whom refused to participate in the 
' mockery of the elective franchise, these in- 
' vaders polled over a thousand votes." 

An examination of details will reveal the 
extent of this fraud. In the seventh election 
district of Kansas, six hundred and four votes 
were cast on the 29th of November, 1854. 
Of these, Whitfield received five hundred and 
ninety-seven — all but seven. Three months 
afterwards the census was taken, and there 
M-ere only fifty-three voters in the seventh 
district. Who went there to vote? Organ- 
ized, armed, disciplined men from the State 
of Missouri ; and all the votes but seven in 
that district were given for Mr. Whitfield. 
Does the Senator from Missouri call that "pro- 
tecting the ballot-box against armed colo- 
nists?" In the eleventh district, on the same 
day, two hundred and thirty-seven votes were 
given. In February following, when the cen- 
sus was taken, there were but twenty-fbUr 
voters iu that district, which, three months 
before, had given Whitfield two hundred and 
thirty-seven votes — all but three of the whole 
number cast. And within thirty days after 
the census was taken, three hundred and 
twenty-eight votes were given in this dis- 
trict, having only twenty-four voters ; yet the 
Senator from Missouri gravely informs the 
Senate that Missourians only crossed over the 
borders " to protect the ballot-boxes against 
armed colonists" sent there under the au- 
spices of Emigrant Aid Societies. That these 
Missourians crossed the line and voted on that 
day for Whitfield, no one doubted ; but he 
had a majority of the voters of the Territory, 
and /or that reason his electioji was not contested. 
That is the answer to the Senator from Con- 
necticut, who has built his argument on that 
fact. 

The character of this invasion will appear 
in an extract from a speech made by one of 
these modern heroes, (General Stringfellow, ) 
who, according to the Senator from Missouri, 
crosses over into Kansas " to protect the bal- 
lot-boxes from the armed colonists" from the 
free States. This speech was made just before 
the election of November 29, 1854, to which 
the Senator from Connecticut has referred 
with so much confidence, at St. Joseph, Mis- 
souri. In that speech. General Striugfellow 
said : 

"I tell you to mark every scoundrel among 
' you that is the least tainted with Free-Soil- 
' ism or Abolitionism, and exterminate him. 
' Neither give nor take quarter from the 
' damned rascal. I propose to mark them in 
' this house, and on the present occasion, so, 
' that you may crush them out." 



6 



'' Crush them ont" is the language. You 
tvill remember, sir, that the Attorney Gener- 
al of the United States — a man who s])ent the 
dew of his j'outh and the vigor of his early 
manhood in assailing Democratic statesmen, 
and who is now giving the mature years 
of his life to undermining and perverting 
Democratic principles — sent an edict to Mas- 
sachusetts, pending the election in 1853, that 
the President "was up to the occasion," and 
intended " to crush out the element of Aboli- 
tionism." General Stringfellow, like the 
President, is "up to the occasion." He has 
caught up the word of the Attorney General. 
He is going to mark the Free-Soilers, he say.«, 
that you may "crush them out." I think his 
success, sir, "will be about equal to the success 
which followed the efforts of the President and 
General Gushing, in "crushing out the ele- 
ment of Abolitionism." The elections of the 
last two years have shown who is the crusher 
and who is the crushed. General Stringfel- 
low continues : 

" To those who have qualms of conscience 
' as to violating laws, State or National, the 
' time has come when such impositions must 
' be disregarded, as your rights and property 
' are in danger ; and I adrise you, one and all, 
' to enter every election district in Kansas, in de- 
^ fiance of Reader and his vile myrmidons, and 
' vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver. 
' Neither give nor take quarter, as our cause 
' demands it. It is enough that the slave- 
' holding interest wills it, from which there is 
' no appeal. What right has Goveri^or Reed- 
' er to rule Missourians in Kansas? His pro- 
' clamation and prescribed oath must be re- 
' pudiated. It is your interest to do so. 
' Mind that Slavery is established where it is 
'not prohibited." 

"Qualms of conscience as to violating laws. 
State or National !'' No, sir, that will never 
do! "Such impositions must be disregard- 
ed !" " Every election district in Kansas must 
be entered by one and all," and they must 
" vote at the point of the bowie-knife and re- 
volver 1" Is that the way these border gen- 
tlemen pass over the line, according to the 
Senator fromMissou.:, "to protect the ballot- 
boxes against the armed colonists ?" 

"Qualms of conscience about violating 
laws, State or National," were given up, and 
they "entered into every election district in 
Kansas, in spite of the proclamation of Reed- 
er," and made the election of Whitfield dou- 
bly sure. The Senate will remember that the 
Senator from Missouri assures us that Missou- 
rians only crossed the borders to "protect 
the ballot-boxes against the armed colonists " 
from the East. Sir, I commend to the espe- 
cial consideration of the Senator from Missou- 
ri the advice of General Stringfellow, to give 
up all "qualms of conscience as to violating 
laws. State or National," and to "enter every 
election district in Kansas." Is that the way 
Missourians "protect the ballot-boxes over 
. theJborders?" 

Mr. BtTTLEE. AUo-w me to ask the Senac 



tor's authority for the remarks of General 
Stringfellow. 

Mr. WILSON. I quote from a speech made 
by General Stringfellow, i)ublishcd in a West- 
ern Missouri paper, republished throughout 
the country and never denied by him. Gen- 
eral Stringfellow has since said, in a letter to 
the people of the South, that if the Missouri- 
ans had gone into Kansas and ruled it once, 
they could do it again. The men in Western 
Missouri who were the first to accept the ad- 
vice of their leader, do not deny these things. 
They openly proclaim their intentions, and 
act upon them. ' Sir. I can respect the frank- 
ness of crime, much more than the wriggling 
eflbrts, by apology, inuendo, and assertion, 
to falsify facts and to impeach the innocent. 

Mr. BUTLER. I do not intend to deny 
anything that General Stringfellow assumed 
to say. I know General Stringfellow very 
well, and I presume he would stand up to- 
morrow and face the music. I do not sup- 
pose that he would retreat, nor do I deny any- 
thing which is imputed to him, except, i"t may 
be, the bad taste of the language used in what 
the Senator has read. [Laughter.] As to 
his whipping Reeder, everybody knows it. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. WILSON. Well, sir, I do not wish to 
contend with the Senator about the taste of 
this border hero. 

I proceed now with the facts. The census 
of Kansas was taken, by the direction of Gov- 
ernor Reeder, in February, 1855; and then 
there were eight thousand five hundred inhab- 
itants, and two thousand eight hundred and 
seventy-seven legal voters, in the Territory. 
At the ensuing election — on the 30th of March, 
1855 — four thousand voters from the State of 
Missouri passed into that Territory, and gave 
their votes. Lawrence, according to the cen- 
sus, was entitled to less than five hundred 
votes. But, sir, nine hundred and fifty were 
cast, although nearly one half the legal vo- 
ters of Lawrence, if we are to believe the tes- 
timony of some of their most respectable cit- 
izens, refused to vote on that day. More than 
eight hundred Missourians, armed to the teeth, 
led by Colonel Young, a lawyer of Western 
Missouri, went to Lawrence, the home of the 
New England men so often assailed and so 
much misrepresented in the documents be- 
fore us. Colonel Young made a speech, de- 
claring that he would vote or would shed his 
blood. He took the precaution, however, to 
swear in his vote. He had more regard for 
his life than he had for his conscience. 

Mr. YULEE. Will the Senator excuse me 
for a moment? 

Mr. WILSON. Certainly. 

Mr. YULEB. I have been listening with 
much interest to the Senator's remarks, and L 
desire to ask him, as he proceeds with his 
statements of fa-^t, to refer us to the authority 
on which he relies. 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, I state what 
I have said on the authority of Mr. Hutchin- 
son, a lawyer of Lawrence, and a rejected 
Frise State member of the Legislature of Kau- 



Bas, elected in 1855, and now present in the 
Senate Chamber — a man, sir, of intelligence, 
of conscience, and of character. And what he 
says is confirmed by the memorial of Gener- 
al Pomeroy, to which I have referred, setting; 
forth certain facts which transpired on that 
day. I will read what this gentleman says 
in regard to the Lawrence district : 

"In the Lawrence district, speeches were 
' made to them by leading residents of Mis- 
' souri, in which it was said that they would 
' carry their purpose, if need be, at the point 
' of the bayonet and bowie-knife ; and one 
' voter was fired at, as he was driven from the 
' election ground. Finding they had a great- 
'er force than was necessary for that poll, 
' some two hundred men were drafted from 

* the number, and sent off, under their proper 
' officers, to another district ; after which, 
' they still polled from this camp over seven 
' hundred votes." 

General Pomeroy says that in the fourth 
and seventh districts, along the Sante Fe 
road, 

" The invaders came together in one armed 

* and organized body, with trains of fifty 
' wagons, besides horsemen, and the night 
' before election, pitched their camp in "the 

* vicinity of the polls ; and, having appointed 

* their own judges in place of those who, 
' from intimidation or otherwise, fiiiled to at- 
' tend, they voted without any proof of resi- 
' dence. In these two election districts, where 
' the census shows one hundred voters, there 

* were polled three hundred and fourteen 
' votes." 

In the Leavenworth district, hundreds of 
men breakfasted in Missouri, voted in Kansas, 
and returned on the same day to Missouri. 
While the voting was going on, one of their 
leaders made a speech, in which he told the 
Platte county boys that they must stand 
aside, and let the Clay county IJoys vote first, 
because they had the farthest to go in return- 
ing to their homes ; and the Platte county 
boys of Missouri stood aside, and allowed 
the Clay county boys of Missouri to vote first 
and go home. 

This memorial declares that 

''Hundreds of men came together in the 
'sixteenth district, crossing the river from 
'Missouri the day before election, and en- 
' camping together, armed and provisioned, 
' made the fiercest threats against the lives of 
' the judges, and during the night called 
'several times at the house of one of them, 
' for the purpose of intimidating him, decla- 
'ring in the presence of his wife that a rope 
' had been prepared to hang him ; and al- 
' though we are not prepared to say that these 
' threats would have been carried out, yet they 
' served to produce his resignation, and give 
' these invaders, in the substitution, control 
' of the polls ; and on the morniug of the elec- 
' tion, a steamboat brought from the town of 
' Weston, Missouri, to Leavenworth, an ac- 
' cession to their number of several hundred 
' more, who returned in the same boat, after 
' depositing their votes. There were over 



' nine hundred and fifty rotes polled, besides 
' from one hundred to one hundred and fifty 
' actual residents who were deterred or di*. 
' fouraged from voting, while the census re- 
' turns show but three hundred and eighty- 
' five votes in the district a month before. 
' Not less than six hundred votes were here 
' given by these non-residents of the Territory 
' who voted without being sworn as to their 
' qualifications, and, immediately after the 
' election, returned back to Missouri, some of 
' them being the incumbents of important 
' public ofiBces there." 

I will now, sir, quote what General Pome- 
roy says of the election in the eighteenth dis- 
trict ; and I ask the attention of the Senator 
from Missouri to this statement : 

" In the eighteenth election district, where 
' the population was sparse, and no great 
' amount of foreign votes was needed to over- 
' power it, a detachment from Missouri, from 
' sixty to one hundred, passed in with a train 
' of wagons, arms and ammunition, making 
' their camp the night before the election near 
' Moorestown, the place of the polls, without 
' even a pretext of residence, and returning 
• immediately to Missouri after their work was 
' done, their leader and captain being a dis- 
'tinguished citizen of Missouri, but late the 
' presiding officer of the Senate of the United 
' States, and who had bowie-knife and re- 
' volver belted around him, apparently ready 
' to shed the blood of any man who refused to 
' be enslaved. All these facts we are prepared 
' to establish, if necessary, by proof that 
' would be considered competent in a court 
' of justice." 

General Pomeroy expresses the opinion, 

" That not less than three thousand votes 
' were given by these armed invaders, who 
' came organized in bands with ofiicers, and 
' arms, and tents, and provisions, and muni- 
' tions of war, as though they were marching 
' upon a foreign foe, instead of their own un- 
' ofiending fellow-citizens. Upon the princi- 
' pal road leading into our Territory, and 
' passing several important polls, they num- 
' bered not less than twelve hundred men, and 
' one camp alone contained not less than sif 
' hundred. They arrived at their several 
' destinations the night before the election, 
' and, having pitched their camps and placed 
' their sentries, waited for the coming day. 
' Baggage-wagons were there, with arms and 
' ammunition enough for a protracted fight, 
' and among them two brass field pieces, ready 
' charged. They came with drums beating 
' and flags flying, and their leaders were of 
' the most prominent and conspicuous men of 
' their State." 

How very considerate it was, Jlr. President, 
in these '' prominent and conspicuous men," 
with their baggage-wagons, and cannons, and 
rifles, and drums, and flying flags, to lead the 
men of Western Missouri over into the forests 
and prairies of Kansas, to protect the ballot- 
boxes from those dangerous men, the armed 
colonists of New England ! 

Sir, the gentleman from Connecticut wishes 



g 



to know why the Seats of the legislators elect- 
ed bj the Missourians were not contested. 
I will tell him : Mr. Phillips, a young lawyer 
of Leavenworth, not himself a candidate, took 
measures to have the seat of the member from 
the sixteenth district contested — and Avhat 
was the result? He was taken over into Mis- 
souri and lynched, because he dared, simply 
on patriotic grounds, to dispute the right of 
the member to his seat, into which he had 
been voted by these armed men from Mis- 
souri. 

Sir, the whole power and patronage of this 
Government, from the time when the Kansas 
and Nebraska act went into operation to this 
hour, has been given to crush out the freemen 
of ELansas, and to plant the institution of 
Slavery upon that virgin soil. Read the 
papers which support the Administration in 
that Territory, and what do we find? The 
Squatter Sovereign says : 

" We hope the Thirty-fourth Congress will 
' be the last Congress that will ever assemble, 
'and that the Southern men coming into 

* Kansas will be prepared to range Kansas in 
'the Southern Republic." 

The paper which made that declaration re- 
ceives the patronage and support of this law- 
abiding, liberty-loving. Union-saving Ad- 
ministration, which the Senator from Con- 
necticut is always the most prompt, the first — 
and about the only — Senator here to support. 
[Laughter.] 

Sir, I have before me an extract from 
another of those Union-loving, law-abiding 
organs of the Administration in Kansas, which 
supports the law-and-order party there, of 
which we read so much in the correspondence 
before us. The Kicka-poo Pioneer — a paper 
sustained by the friends of this Administra- 
tion — gives us the following fine specimen of 
its regard for law and order : 

"The South must be up and doing; 
' Kansas must and shall be a slave State. 
' Mark what we say. Southern freemen ! 
Come along with your negroes, and plough 
up every inch of ground that is at this time 
disgraced and defaced by an abolition plough. 
' Send the scoundrels back to whence they 
' came, or send them to hell — it matters not 

* which destination ; suit your own conveni- 
'ence. Sound the bugle of war over the 
' length and breadth of the land, and leave 
' not an abolitionist in the Territory to relate 

their treacherous and contaminating deeds. 
' Strike your piercing rifle-balls and your 
' glittering steel to their black and poisonous 
' hearts ; let the war-cry never cease in Kan- 
' sas again, until our Territory is divested of 
' the last vestige of abolitionism." 

The paper which utters such sentiments is 
the supporter of the President, and the organ 
and supporter of the policy which meets so 
warmly the approbation of the Senator from 
Connecticut. 

The officers of the United States in the Ter- 
ritory of Kansas — the judges, the district 
attorney, the secretary, and the marshal — are 
all Slave State men, and their influence has 



been given in favor of making Kansas a slav9 
State. Governor Reeder, who undertook to 
protect the jieople in their legal rights, was 
stricken down, under the pretence that he 
b.ad been speculating in the public lands. 
Of twenty-one officers of the Federal Govern- 
ment in the Territory, nineteen are Slave State 
men, and one is a Free State man ; but al- 
ready he is marked by Atchison, and another 
designated for his place. Within the last tea 
days, men from Kansas have called upon the 
Executive to remonstrate against this striking 
down of a public officer, simply for the crime 
of being in favor of free institutions. 

[At this point the honorable Senator yield- 
ed to a motion to adjourn.] 



Tuesday, February 19, 1856. 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. President 

Mr. GBYER. If the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts will allow me, I desire, before he 
proceeds, to ask him a question. I under- 
stood him to state yesterday, upon the au- 
thority of General Pomeroy, that a former 
presiding officer of this body (meaning, of 
course, my late colleague) had entered Kan- 
sas Territory for some unlawful purpose, 
armed with bowie-knifes and pistols. 1 de- 
sire first to know whether General Pomeroy 
states that on his own knowledge ; and then, 
at what time it was that he is supposed to 
have entered that Territory thus armed ? 
Will the Senator be good enough to answer? 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, I very cheer- 
fully answer the questions submitted to me 
by the honorable Senator from Missouri. I 
stated yesterday, on the authority of General 
Pomeroy, that on the 30th of March, 1855, the 
late President of the Senate entered the eigh- 
teenth election district of the Territory of 
Kansas, near Moorestown, and that be wa3 
armed "with a bowie-knife and revolver 
around him, apparently ready to shed the 
blood of any man who refused to be en- 
slaved." And this trustworthy authority 
adds, " all these facts we are prepared to 
establish, if necessary, by proof that would be 
considered competent in any court of justice." 

Mr. GEYER. Will the Senator allow me 
to state mv information on that subject ? 

Mr. WILSON. Certainly, sir. 

Mr. GEYER. Mr. President, when that 
charge was made yesterday, I was not pre- 
pared to prove a negative ; therefore I did 
not interrupt the Senator. I have since made 
inquiries of the Representative in the other 
House of the district in which General Atchi- 
son resides, to ascertain from him whether 
General Atchison had crossed the borders at 
that time. He answered, " No ; he was not 
there." I inferred, therefore, that General 
Pomeroy had given the information upon the 
authority of some one else, and not of his own 
knowledge. The only time, so far as I have 
been able to learn, when General Atchison f 
crossed into Kansas at all during the period 



of any disturbance there, was the last one 
which was mentioned in the report read be- 
fore the Senate .yesterday. At tliat time it 
was apprehended there wonid be a serious col- 
lision and much destruction of life between 
those who had collected at Wakarusaand the 
citizens of Lawrence. At that time General 
Atchison, tofjcther with some two or three 
other e:entlcmen — his n'eijjfhbors — went over 
for the purpose of persuading; those at 
Wakarusa to forbearance. He counselled 
peace. That was his errand at that time in 
the Territory. So much was he indisposed to 
any collision between the citizens of Missouri, 
or those who are represented to have been 
citizens of Missouri, and the inhabitants of 
Lawrence, that he left his home for the ])ur- 
pose of interposing as a peace-maker. After- 
wards, it is true — after the pacification had 
taken place, as mentioned in the report, and 
he was about to return home — there was a 
gallant captain of mounted men at Lawrence 
who proposed to proceed and capture him. 
He was, to the credit of the commandinsf ofli- 
cer at Lawrence, restrained from doing so. 
That is the only instance within mj' know- 
ledge, and so far as I have been able to ascer- 
tain from the Representative of his district, 
when General Atchison crossed the border at 
all. 

Jlr. WILSON". I place, sir, the written 
declaration of General Pomeroy. a gentleman 
thoroughly conversant with affairs in Kansas, 
and a gentleman of the strictest veracity, 
against the statement^ of the Senator from 
iklissonri. The facts stated in this memorial, 
drawn up by General Pomeroy, have been 
published to the world, and never to my 
knowledge questioned before. That General 
Atchison entered Kansas at that election, I do 
not entertain the shadow of a doubt. That it 
can be clearly established by persons of 
veracity and character, lam assured by gen- 
tlemen now in this city from Kansas. 

Sir, I do not wish to do injustice to the 
gentleman who so recently filled your chair. 
When Congress assembled, in December, 1854, 
he was not here; and you, sir, were placed in 
the seat which the Senate had assigned to 
him. lie came here afterwards, spent a few 
weeks, and about the 1st of February left 
the cajjital for his home in Western Missouri, 
with the avowal that he went to look after 
affairs in Kansas, and to organize for the 
election to take place on the 30th of March. 
General Atchison was the organizing, moving 
spirit of that Missouri movement from which 
all of these unlawful transactions have origi- 
nated. 

I congriitulate the Senate and the country, 
that the honorable Senator from Missouri is 
sensitive in regard to the position of General 
Atchison. It is now admitted that there was 
an unlawful invasion of Kans.as l\v excited 
iind armed men, and that the late President 
of the Senate left his home in Western Mis- 
souri, and passed over into Kansas, and used 
his personal influence with these men he had 
once organized, to prevent their imbruing 



their hands in the blood of the people of Kan- 
sas, and making Lawrence a heap of ruins. I 
congratulate the Senate and the country, that 
the Senator from Missouri has made the 
statement to which we have listened. 1 hope 
it will go forth to the country, that the late 
President of the Senate went over to Kansas, 
not to aid Shannon in executing the laws, 
but to restrain the men who were threatening 
Lawrence with swift destruction. 

When I yielded the floor yesterday for an 
adjournment, I was speaking of the election 
of the 30th of March, 1855. The result of that 
election was, that the nineteen districts in 
Kansas were carried by the Pro-Slavery party, 
and that more than six thousand votes were 
given in that Territory, where, thirty days 
before, there were less than three thousand 
voters. 

The question was put yesterday by the hon- 
orable Senator from Connecticut, why the 
Governor gave certificates of election on that 
occasion? I will simply say, that Governor 
Recder, in the cases brought before him, did 
refuse to deliver thecertificates; that he made 
the refusal in the presence of the men who 
claimed them, with bowie-knifes and revolvers 
in their belts, and amidst threats of his life ; 
and while he read the statement he held a 
cocked revolver in his hand, for necessary self- 
defence. There were a few devoted friends 
around him, expecting to see him murdered 
on that occasion. In the cases not at the 
time contested, in the cases where at the time 
no one dared to raise a question, in the cases 
where at the time a contest was neglected, the 
certificates were given. A new election wag 
ordered in those cases where the certificates 
were set aside, and, in pursuance thereof, 
the people elected Representatives and Coun- 
cillors, and commissions were issued to them. 
They met on the 2d day of July, at Pawnee, 
and both branches of the Legislature, without 
exainiuing the facts, and positively refusing 
to do so, voted out the men chosen by the 
people of Kansas, and voted in the men 
originally chosen by the Missouri invaders. 
This Legislature, thus chosen, moved the place 
of meeting from Pawnee to Shawnee Mission, 
against the consent of the Gxivernor, who re- 
fused afterwards to recognise it as a Legisla- 
ture. They went on, and passed the laws 
which are now brought here. Some of those 
laws are as iuhuman as any code ever pre- 
sented for the government of a conquered 
people. 

I wish to call the attention of the Senate 
and of the country to some of those laws 
forced upon the people who were allured to 
Kansas by the assurance that they were em- 
powered to shape their own institutions. 
Here is a precious enactment: 

" If any person print, write, introduce into, 
'or i)ublish, or circulate, or cause to be 
' brought into, printed, written, published, or 
' circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist 
'in bringing into, printing, publishing, or 
'circulating, within this Territory, any book, 
' paper, pamphlet, magazine, handbill, or cir- 



10 



'cular, containing any statements, arguments; 
'opinion, sentiment, doctrine, advice, or 
'inucntlo, calculated to produce a disorderly, 
* dangerous, or rebellious disalFt-ction among 
' the slaves of this Territory, or to induce 
' such slaves to escape from the service of their 
' masters, or to resist their authority, shall 
'li^ guilty of a felony, and be punished by 
' imprisonment, at hard labor, for a term not 
' less than five years." 

This law, thus enacted, is the law that is to 
be executed iu Kansas, if need be, by the sa- 
bres of the United States dragoons. If the 
men from the free Slates in that Territory 
should print or circulate tliis sentiment, ut- 
tered by the President of the United States, 
on the 1st day of January, 1851, in the Con- 
stitutional Convention of New Hampshire — 

"I would take the ground of the non-ex- 
' tension of Slavery, that Slavery should not 
' become stronger." " What one thing is there 
' connected with Slavery that is not ob- 
' noxious?'' — 

I say that, if these avowals were circulated 
in that Territory, the person circulating them 
might be denounced as circulating a speech 
that was calculated to excite disaffection 
among men held iu bondage. 

If a slaveholder should find in the hand of 
some one of his bondmen, who may have been 
taught, in spite of legal prohibitions, to read 
the ten commandments, the pregnant ques- 
tion of the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, 
"What one thing is there connected with 
Slavery that is not obnoxious ?" Would he 
not think it at least a dangerous "inuendo," 
calculated to create "disaffection" in the 
bosom of his slave ? And, sir. if in his wrath 
he should make the discovery that a son of 
the Granite State had "caused to be circula- 
ted" this sentiment of the prominent son of 
his native New Hampshire, would he not try 
the virtues to be found in the term of five 
years' imprisonment? If some slaveholder 
should find in the hand of his fleeing bond- 
man the speech of the Attorney General of 
the United States, delivered in June, 1836, 
against the admission of Arkansas, with a 
Constitution making Slavery perpetual, 
wherein I find these sentiments — " I do not 
persuade myself that Liberty is an evil, or 
Slavery a blessing." " Shall we be brutishly 
dumb when it is sought through us to render 
Slavery perpetual in new States ?" " I should 
be false to all the opinions and principles of 
my life, if I did not promptly return a per- 
emptory and emphatic No ! when called upon 
to accord ray sanction to a form of govern- 
ment which perpetuates Slavery." Would 
not the slaveholder deem it a "fixed fact," 
that the man who circulated these sentiments 
was "guilty of a felony," punishable with 
five years of imprisonment? Ay, sir, if some 
son of Massachusetts should be found circu- 
lating the resolutions of the Democratic State 
Convention in 1849, written by Benjamin F. 
Hallett, then (Chairman of the National Demo- 
cratic Committee, and now the President's 
District Attorney for Massachusetts, declaring 



that "we are opposed to Slavery in every 
form and color, and in favor of Freedom and 
free soil wherever man lives throughout God's 
heritage" — a pretty broad declaration, that 
includes Kansas — 1 say, that if these resolu- 
tions, endorsed by Charles G. Greene, the 
especial favorite of the President in New Eng- 
land, as National Democratic doctrine, should 
be circulated in Kansas by some son of Mas- 
sachusetts, he would be subjected to the pun- 
ishment provided for in this section. 

Here is another section of this inhuman 
statute : 

" If any free person, by speaking or writing, 
'assert or maintain that persons have not the 
' right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall 
' introduce into this Territory, print, publish, 
' write, circulate, or cause to be introduced 
'into this Territory, written, printed, pub- 
' lished, or circulated, in this Territory, any 
'hook, paper, magazine, pamphlet, or circular, 
'containing any denial of the right of persons 
' to hold slaves in this Territory, such person 
'shall be deeemed guilty of felony, and pun- 
'ished by imprisonment at hard labor for a 
' term not less than two years." 

Here is a law which punishes any freeman 
as a felon who went into that Territory un- 
der your organic law — under your " squatter 
sovereignty" doctrine — with two years' im- 
prisonment, if he shall circulate any paper 
that shall "deny the right of any person to 
hold slaves in the Territory under these 
laws ;" and this is the law which the President 
of the United States is so anxious to enforce; 
and this is the law which the Senator from 
Connecticut congratulates the country is to 
be enforced ! 

And, sir, if any person shall be arrested by 
Governor Shannon for circulating in Kansas 
any papers denying the right of any person 
to hold slaves there, this code provides that 

" No jierson who is conscientiously opposed 
' to holciing slaves, or who does not admit the 
' right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall 
' sit as a juror, on the trial of any prosecution 
' for any violation of any of the sections of 
' this act." 

When the Legislature assembled, when it 
turned out the men who had been legally 
chosen, when it brought in the men imposed 
on the Territory bj' armed invaders from a 
neighboring State, when it removed to the 
Shawnee Mission, when it was repudiated by 
your Governor, sent there by this Administra- 
tion, then it was that the freemen of Kansas 
assembled in their primary meetings, and de- 
clared against the legality of this Legislature 
and its acts. A Convention of the People was 
called. That Convention assembled, framed 
a Constitution, the People ratified it, and that 
Constitution is now submitted for the action 
of the Congress of the United States. The 
Senator from Connecticut denounces it as a 
"spurious Convention." Sir, this Conven- 
tion was the act of the People of Kansas, in 
their sovereign primary capacity. They ac- 
cepted the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. 
They accepted the doctrines laid down by 



11 



Mndison, by Jfarsliall, by Story, bj' Jndc:e 
Wilson, by Buchanan and Wright, and the 
chiefs of the Deiu;)cratic party in the days 
■when the Democratic party paid some little 
regard to the principles of popular govern- 
ment. 

Sir, the Senator from Connecticut denounced 
this act of the People as a "'spurious Con- 
vention." In 1S36. the freemen of Michigan, 
disregardin^i^ the action of their Li.'gislature, 
came togeihcr in their primary capacit 



Missouri — an 'invasion which took place on 
the 1st of October last, when General Whit- 
field was elected. I state here, on the au- 
thority of gentlemen, some half dozen of 
whom are within the sound of my voice, and 
who will prove it under oath before your com- 
mittee, if you will permit them to do so, that 
hundreds of men went over from Missouri and 
voted in that election. 

The invasion — the fourth invasion of which 
we have heard so much in these papers from 



framed a Constitution, sent that Constitution j the Executive Department — grew out of the 

*., n __j .i,.,4. n ,*:..,.: ., , < „,.tj i.i....j.-.j __ i__ _i- .„ u .. xk _ 



to Congress, and tiiat Constitution was car- 
ried through the Senate by the votes of Ben- 
ton, Buchanan, Wright, and the chiefs of the 
Democratic jjarty ; but that was in the days 
of Andrew Jackson, when it was supposed 
the people of this country had retained the 
rights guarantied to them by the fundamen- 
tal laws of the country. Sir, Andrew Jack- 
son did not denounce the movement as an in- 



cold-blooded murder of a man by the name 
of Dow, at Hiclcory Point, by one Coleman. 
Mr. Branson and his neighbors took the mor- 
tal remains of the murdered Dow from the 
highway, where he had lain for hours, and 
consigned them to his last resting-place. 
The murderer has never been tried or arrested. 
Branson, with whom Dow had lived, waa 
arrested on a peace-warrant, by Sheriff Jones, 



surrectionary one, although they refused to ! and rescued by some fifteen of his neighbors 
receive the officer whom he sent to them, land friends. Then it was that the stories 
The Congress of that day did not denounce | were manufactured, thata thousand men were 
those men as traitors to the country, as the' organized at Lawrence, armed with Sharpe'a 
men of Kansas are denounced in the docu- I rifles and cannon, ready to resist the auihori- 
ments before us, ten thousand extra copies of \ ties. There were not then more than three 
which we are asked to publish. No, sir, no! : hundred Sharpe's rifles in Lawrence, and not 
This is the first time in the history of this : one cannon. There was no armed soldiery 
country, when the People have assembled in I in Lawrence when these charges were made; 
their primary capacity, and exercised their j there were armed men there, but they were 
right, their inborn, natural right, to change 1 not embodied. Of the men who aided in the 
their Government at their pleasure, and then rescue of Branson — an act which might take 
being held up as traitors by the Government place in any State, at any tinie, without any 
of the country. Governor thinking of calling out the armed 

Sir, the Democracy in both branches of militia, much less the forces of the United 
Congress sustained the doctrines maintained States — only two ever lived in Lawrence, and 
by the suffrage party in Rhode Island ; and | they were not in Lawrence at that time. The 
it so happens that when Governor Dorr j reports mentioned in these dispatches, about 
took refuge in the old Granite State, among ! burning buildings, have turned out to be ex- 
the first who recognised the doctrines which I aggerated and misrepresented, 
he maintained, was the man who is Chief On the strength of these reports, however, 
Magistrate of the United States, and who now : Governor Shannon sent his letter of the 28th 
denounces the freemen of Kansas, and holds i of November to the President, and on the 
up to the country as violators of the law, men ' next day he issued that fatal proclamation 
who are, on the 4th of March next, to be ar- j which fomented, at the time, the invasion from 
rested if they dare asseiuble in their legisla- i Missouri, and this was followed by his tele- 
tive capacity, and choose two United States I graphic despatch of the 1st of December. 
Senators to come and implore us to receive j Here let me say, that in this letter, proclama- 
Kansas into this sisterhood of States, and thus j tion, and dispatch. Governor Shannon shows 
save this fair Territory from bloodshed and ' that he is not a man who comprehends his 
ruin. Yes, sir, this man, who now charac- 1 position or his duties. He was^xcited and 
terizes as " revolutionary" what has already j frightened by the reports and rumors he re- 
been done by the people of Kansas, and warns , lied upon. During this period, when he 
them that further action " will become trea- \ ordered out the militia and telegraphed the 
Eonable insurrection," welcomed Governor i President, dispatches, founded on rumors. 
Dorr to the capital of New Hampshire, on the were sent into Missouri; and the result was, 
14th of December, 1842, in a series of resolu- ; that from one thousand to two thousand 
tions declaring, that " when the people act in | armed men came from Missouri into Kansas ; 
their original sovereign capacity, they are : and they were incorporated into that ''little 
not bound to conform to forms not instituted ; force of less than four hundred men," spoken 
by themselves;" that " the day of free Gov- ' of in these despatches from Kansas, which 
ernment would never dawn upon the eyes of ' rallied to the call of the officers of the militia! 
oppressed millions," "if the friends of Liberty i Sir, if the people of Kansas had been with the 
should wait for leave from tyrants to abolish Governor— if they had sympathized with him 
tyranny." I in his ill-starred inovements— if they had be- 

Sir, in pursuing this history, I have fol- i lieved that law and order were in danger- 
lowed the order of time, and I am now j would they not have rallied to his support? 
brought to speak of another iavasiou from i On that occasion, the arsenal of the United 



12 



States in Western Missouri was broken open ; 
arms were stolen and carried into Kansas. 
Nothing is said about this robbery in these 
reports. Missourians broke open this arsenal, 
and stole cannon, ammunition, and muskets, 
for the purpose of goin<^ on a marauding in- 
vasion ; and the late President of the Senate 
was compelled — so great was the danger — to 
hasten after them, to keep them from hurting 
somebody ! Yet, not a word is said about it 
in these dispatches! Sir, if the freemen of 
Kansas had broken open that arsenal, and 
had stolen even a gun-flint, you would have 
had a proclamation from your Governor and 
your President, and the array of the United 
States would have been called out to put them 
down. But it was the organized men of the 
Blue Lodges in Western Missouri who did it. 
They have been, and now are. permitted to 
violate all law with impunity. Woodson, the 
Secretary of Kansas, urged on these lawless 
men from Missouri, by assuring them that 
" there is no doubt in regard to having a figlit ; 
and if we are defeated this time, the Territory j 
is lost to the South." 

The invading hosts from Missouri encamped j 
on the Wakarusa, within about six miles of 
beleaguered Lawrence. In marked contrast 
to the inconsiderate folly of Shannon, was the 
prudent, firm and heroic bearing of General 
Robinson. Throughout the whole contest, 
his prudence was signally manifested ; and, 
in the opinion of many, the country was 
saved from bloodshed and civil war by his 
action. On the 7th of December, your Gov- 
ernor tells you he went to Lawrence ; but he 
does not tell you the whole story. He did go 
to Lawrence, and he met the Lawrence men, 
and the Lawrence women, too ; and he saw 
the inflexible determination of the one, and 
the calm devotion of the other. He told gen- 
tlemen who directed the aifairs of Lawrence, 
that they had been misrepresented — that they 
misunderstood each other; and then, after 
two days of conference and negotiation, he 
made a treaty. The first sentence of the treaty 
acknowledges that the Governor and the peo- 
ple of Lawrence had not understood each 
other. Here is a man who asked the Presi- 
dent for the army of the United States ; who 
ordered out the militia, and incorporates into 
the militia of Kansas, by the showing of these 
papers, from one thousand to fifteen hundred 
Missourians ; and then, after doing this, he 
went to Lawrence — and what did he find? 
People who flew to arms simply to protect 
their homes and their firesides against an 
armed invasion of two thousand men, who 
were threatening, with oaths, to burn their 
city, and to blot them out from existence. I 
say. Governor Shannon made a treaty with 
General Lane, (known to some Senators here,) 
and with General Robinson — a man who, I 
hope, is hereafter to be known to Senators — 
and this treaty closes with the agreement, on 
the part of Governor Shannon, that he " will 
use his influence to secure to the citizens of 
Kansas remuneration for any damages sus- 
tained by the sheriff's posse in Douglas coun- 



ty; that he has not called upon persons resi- 
dents of any other States to aid in the execu- 
tion of the laws ; and that he has not any 
authority or legal power to do so, nor will he 
exercise any such power ; and that he will not 
call on any citizen of another State who may 
be here." In these negotiations he agreed to 
waive the question of the validity of the laws 
of the Territorial Legislature. Then he issued 
an order to Lane and Robinson to incorpo- 
rate into the service of Kansas the militia of 
Lawrence, and directed them " to use the en- 
rolled <brce for the preservation of the peace, 
and the protection of Lawrence and vicinity " 
acainst the armed men on the banks of the 
Wakarusa. 

Mr. President, this treaty, which Shannon 
signed, with Lane and Robinson, on Sunday, 
the 9th of December, 1855, will stand a per- 
petual confession of his incapacity and folly ; 
this order, giving Lane and Robinson author- 
ity " to use the enrolled force" — with those 
famed Sharpe's rifles — "for the preservation 
of peace, and the protection of Lawrence and 
vicinity " against the armed bands his fatal 
proclamation had summoned, will sUmd a 
living testimony that the men of Lawrence 
were the guardians of law. Yes, sir, that 
treaty and that order will stand an eternal 
expression, at once of error and repentance. 

After signing those evidences of his own 
huiniliation, he returned to the camp on the 
Wakarusa, and then, to the leaders of the 
crew he had drawn together, proclaimed his 
truce with the men of Lawrence. Back to 
their homes in Missouri sauntered these baf- 
fled bands of lawless deperadocs, cold, sullen, 
dispirited. They came to the banks of the 
Wakarusa, big with threats of vengeance 
upon the Free-State men of Lawrence ; they 
returned with bitter curses ujion the imbecile 
Governor, whose proclatuation had drawn 
them from their homes. General Stringfellow, 
whose pure taste the Senator from South Car- 
olina can vouch for, denounced the treachery 
of Shannon. Captain Leonard, the leader of 
one of these gangs of border banditti, through 
the columns of the St. Joseph (?a2««c, declares 
that your Governor "raises a storm, and then 
to qtjell it, Judas-like, professes his special 
friendship, first for one party, and then, I con- 
jecture, for the other. But however this may 
be, he descends to the despicable position of 
a common liar, both to the one party and the 
other." 

You m.ay search the records of the country, 
from the settlement at Jamestown to this day, 
and you can find no instance of such incapa- 
city, folly, and superadded criminality, as 
AVilson Shannon displayed on that occasion ; 
or such an utter disregard of the rights of the 
people as was manifested by the border set- 
tlers of Missouri. I commend to the consider- 
ation of the Senator from Missouri these preg- 
nant questions of the St. Louis Democrat, a 
paper published at his own home: 

" Wliat right had these hordes of border 
' banditti to invade the soil of that Territory, 
' and enlist themselves in support of Governor 



13 



'Shannon? What business had they there? 
'What law or what precedent would justify 
'their interference in the affairs of a free and 
'sovereign Territory? What right had Gov- 
'ernor Shannon and Stringfellow to invite, 
'encourage, or countenance their presence in 
'arms, in a Commonwealth of which they 
'were not citizens? AVas there ever a more 
' glaring inconsistency, or a more glaring out- 
' rage, than that by which Shannon and his 
'minions have sought to overawe and crush 
'a portion of the people of Kansas, by intro- 
' duciug a gang of lawless desperadoes upon 
' their soil, armed to the teeth with weapons 
' obtained by breaking open a United States 
' arsenal ? Has the civilized world ever known 
' a more disgraceful, barbarous, and savage 
'spectacle?" 

This Administration has now clothed Wil- 
son Shannon — whose incompetency has been 
made manifest to the world — with the civil 
and military authority, and with all the pow- 
er of the Government to execute the laws, 
and to maintain order in the Territory. The 
duties assigned this officer, in the present crit- 
ical condition of affairs on your frontiers, are 
of the gravest and most weighty character. 
Sir, j-our Administration — by the wanton re- 
peal of the Missouri prohibition, hy the fail- 
ure to protect the actual residents of Kansas 
in their rights, and by the blundering acts 
and criminal remissness of the official author- 
ities — has brought the nation to the perilous 
edge of civil strife. Sir, this Administration 
owes it to the country, whose peace is in dan- 
ger this day, to intrust the responsible and 
delicate duties of Governor of Kansas to a 
prudent, judicious, sagacious statesman — a 
man of individual honor and personal char- 
acter, in whom the people can place the fullest 
confidence. Wilson Shannon is not that man. 
The man who could descend to degrading 
companionship around the gaming tables of 
those saloons of San Francisco, (described by 
that experienced traveller, Jladame Ida Pfeif- 
fer, as the most dissolute she had ever seen in 
her tour of the globe,) with Mexican greasers, 
the escaped convicts of the British penal col- 
onies, aud the desperadoes of the Old World 
and the New — the man who could, while Kan- 
sas was overrun by armed bands, summoned 
around Lawrence by his own reckless letters, 
dispatches, and proclamations, while civil 
war lowered over the people intrusted to his 
care — while an honored citiisen, stricken down 
by the assassin, lay cold in death, and a de- 
voted wife was weeping over his mortal re- 
mains, make himself the humiliating object 
of the derision of his enemies, and of the pity 
of his friends, by an exhibition of gross in- 
toxication — is not the man to whom the 
American people would intrust the affairs of 
Kansas. 

I call the attention of the Senate, Mr. Pres- 
ident, to another foray over the borders — to 
the fifth Missouri invasion. I mean the irrup- 
tion into Kansas on the 15th of December, 
when the people Avere called upon to vote 
upon the Constitntion framed by that Con- 



vention the Senator from Connectictit is 
pleased to pronounce "spurious." Along the 
Missouri border, the people in several ot the 
voting precincts were overawed liy threats of 
impending violence, and meetings were not 
holden. At Leavenworth, the election was 
broken up by the lawless brutality of men, 
many of whom had been ordered to Leaven- 
worth on that day, to be formally discharged 
from service in the Kansas militia, into which 
they had been incorporated. At the dinner 
hour, while most of the people were absent 
from the polls, these "border ruffians" rushed 
upon the otHcers, broke up the meeting, beat 
to the earth, Witherell, the clerk, whose life 
was saved by the heroic daring of Brown, 
since foully murdered, who rushed to his res- 
cue at a moment when the uplifted a.xe of the 
assassin was about to descend upon his pros- 
trate form. 

On the 22d of December, another foray was 
made uj)on freedom at Leavenworth, and the 
press of Mr. Delahay, which barely escaped 
on the 15th, was destroyed. Mr. Delahay is 
a native of Maryland, and has been a slave- 
holder in his native State, in Alabama, and 
in Missouri ; a man who has little sympa- 
thy with Anti-Slavery men. He is simply 
one of those moderate, conservative men, who 
believe that " free labor is honorable, and 
slave labor is dishonorable," and that the per- 
manent interests of Kansas would be promoted 
by making it a free Commonwealth. 

On the loth of January, the people of Kan- 
sas were called upon to elect officers under 
the Constitution adopted on the 15th of De- 
cember. Another assault upon the freedom 
of the ballot-box was made at Easton, by 
armed men. The people attempted to resist 
the destruction of the ballot-boxes bj'' these 
marauding squads that were prowling over 
the country, insulting the people, and robbing 
them of their means of defence. Peaceable, 
law-abiding citizens were hunted down, fired 
upon, and their lives put in imminent peril. 
Some of them had to flee to Lawrence, as to 
a city of refuge, to save themselves from the 
vengeance of the prowling assassins. A party 
of these lawless desperadoes captured Mr. 
Brown — who so bravely rescued Witherell at 
Leavenworth — and several others, robbed 
them of their arms, and then, with hatchets 
and knives, they fiendishly hacked and cut 
Brown to pieces, flung him in a dying condi- 
tion into a carriage, and bore him to his 
home, to breathe out his life in the arms of 
his distracted wife, another sacrifice to the 
dark spirit of slave propagandism. 

To-day, sir, unless they are on their march, 
there is arming and organizing in Westp- 
ern Missouri, in the Blue Lodges, in the se- 
cret camps, hosts of men for another inva- 
sion. Sleepless eyes are upon these move- 
ments, organized by Atchison and his subal- 
terns. General Lane and General Pvobinsou 
sent to the President, on the 21st of January, 
a telegraphic dispatch. Colonel Lane — a man 
who trod the battle-field of Buena Vista — a 
man who knows something of what war ifi, 



14 



vrho knows something of the threats that 
have been made, and the preparations that 
are now malting, on the borders of Western 
Jlissouri, for another lawless invasion of Kan- 
sas — has appealed to the President for protec- 
tion. He is no fimatic. Sir, }-ou, cannot call 
him an abolitionist, at least not j-et. 

Mr. HALE. He will be one soon. 

Jlr. WILSON. The Senator from New 
Hampshire says he will be one soon. The 
scenes through which he is passing are calcu- 
lated to abolilionize men made of the hardest 
natures. John Quincy Adams once said that 
a man " has the right to be an Abolitionist, 
and being an Abolitionist he violates no law, 
human or divine." General Lane may be an 
Abolitionist; but, sir, he is not one now. On 
the 21st of January he asked the President to 
send the military force stationed at Fort Lea- 
venworth to protect the people of Kansas 
against an invasion which is " organizing on 
our border, amply supplied with artillery, for 
the avowed purpose of invading our Territo- 
ry, demolishing our towns, and butchering 
our unoffending Free State citizens." 

Two days after, on January 23d, General 
Lane and General Robinson asked the Presi- 
dent to issue his proclamation forbidding this 
lawless invasion of their Territory. The Sen- 
ator from Connecticut flatters himself that 
those of us who do not approve the course of 
the administration will be greatly disappoint- 
ed to find that the leaders of the Free State 
movement in Kansas have implored the Exec- 
utive to issue his proclamation. Let not the 
Senator from Connecticut lay the flattering 
unction to his soul, that we are chagrined by 
the disclosure of this correspondence. Rob- 
inson and Lane, in behalf of the imperilled 
people of Kansas, asked the President to issue 
"his proclamation immediately, forbidding 
the invasion, which, if carried out as planned, 
will stand forth without a parallel in the 
■world's history." They did not ask the Pres- 
ident for his proclamation against the wronged 
and oppressed people of Kansas. They asked 
for bread — the President gave them a stone. 
They asked for a fish — the President gave 
them a serpent. 

The President, sir, has issued his proclama- 
tion, but that proclamation is chiefly and 
mainly directed against Lane and Robinson, 
and the liberty-loving, law-abiding Free State 
men of Kansas. Like his annual message, in 
which he softly spoke of the long series of 
outrages you will scarcely find paralleled in 
the history of Cliristian States, as "irregular- 
ities " — like that special message in which the 
aggressive acts of the Missouri invaders were 
cohered over with mild and honeyed phrases, 
and the defensive measures of the actual set- 
tlers treated as insurrectionary acts, demand- 
ing Executive censure, this proclamation will 
be received on the Western borders by the 
men who, by their votes and by their resolves, 
have dictated law to Kansas, with shouts of 
approval. Sir, this proclamation will carry 
no terror into the Blue Lodges and secret 
clubs of Western Missouri. 



But, sir, we were congratulated yesterday 
by the Senator from Connecticut, that the 
laws were to be executed and order preserved. 
I call the attention of the Senate and of the 
country to the order of the Secretary of War. 
What does this order say to Colonel Sumner? 
Does it clearly and expressly command him 
to arrest, at all hazards, any aggressive move- 
ment upon Kansas, from Missouri? The Sec- 
retary of War informs Colonel Sumner that 

" The President has, by proclamation, 
' warned all persons combined for insurrectio7i, 
' or invasive aggression against the organized 
' Government of the Territory of Kansas, or 
'associated to resist the due execution of the 
' laws therein, to abstain from such revolu- 
' tionary and lawless proceedings." 

Does the Secretary, then, direct Colonel 
Sumner to defend Kansas against " invasive 
aggression 1" No, sir, no 1 The Secretary 
then issues the orders of the Government to 
Colonel Sumner in these terms: 

" If, therefore, the Governor of the Territo- 
'ry, finding the ordinary course of judicial 
' proceeding and the powers vested in the 
' United States marshals inadequate, for the 
' suppression of insurrectionary/ combinations, 
' or armed resistance to the execution of the law, 
' should make requisition upon you to furnish 
' a military force to aid him in the perforin- 
' ance of that official duty, you are hereby di- 
' rected to employ for that; purpose the forces 
' under your command." 

Sir, this is not a direction to Colonel Sum- 
ner to use his forces against the armed Mis- 
souri invaders. The Secretary tells the Colo- 
nel that the President has sent out his procla- 
mation against those movements; but when 
he comes to direct the commander of the force 
of the United States what to do, he does not 
order him to use that force, if there shall be 
an invasion from the State of Missouri. The 
Secretary shrinks from putting himself against 
the lawless men who represent a Power in 
this country that sustains them in their ag- 
gressive acts. Sir, the Secretary bends to that 
Power; he bows to these men who have no 
" qualms of conscience as to violating laws, 
State or National ;" and we have had nothing 
but bows to these men for the last eighteen 
months, from the other end of the avenue. 

The reason why the Government has not 
used its proper legitimate influences in Kan- 
sas, for peace, for order, and for liberty, is the 
same reason which originally snatched that 
four hundred and fifty thousand square miles 
of free soil — consecrated forever to the labor- 
ing millions of this country — and flung vt 
open to the slave-extending interests. 

Sir, I know that men in the confidence of 
the Administration have expressed the idea 
that the Administration intends, if the Peo- 
ple's Legislature meets on the 4th of March, 
to arrest the members the moment they take 
the oaths of ofiSce. It is a well-known fact, 
sir — known by those who know anything 
about affairs in Kansas — that they do not in- 
tend to pass laws, or interfere in any waj 
with the legislation or the country ; that they 



15 



intend merely to assemble, state their griev- 
ances to the country, and choose Senators to 
come here, to implore us, in God's name, to 
carry out the wishes of the people, and allow 
Kansas to take her place in this Union of free 
Commonwealths. I understand these to be 
the intentions of the tried and trusted leaders 
of the Free State men in Kansas. You may 
arrest Governor Robinson and the leaders of 
the Free State party ; you may imprison them 
if you will ; you may shed the blood of the 
actual settlers of Kansas ; but you cannot 
break their spirits, or crush out their hopes. 
The people of Kansas are for a free State; 
and if it is made a slave State it will be by 
the criminal remissness or direct interposition 
of this Administration. Leave the people 
of Kansas free, uninfluenced by your slave 
State officials you have thrust upon them, un- 
influenced by foreign interposition, and they 
will bring her here clothed in the white robes 
of Freedom. 

The Senator from ilissouri said to us the 
other day, that the colonists from the East 
wished to keep others out; that they wished to 
get possession of the Territory. Armed men, 
he said, had crossed from Missouri to protect 
the ballot-boxes against the armed colonists 
sent there bj' the Emigrant Aid Society ! Did 
they protect the ballot-boxes on the 29th of 
November, 1854, when they went over and 
gave fifteen hundred votes? Did they pro- 
tect the ballot-boxes when they marched into 
Kansas on the 30th of March, with cannon, 
with revolver, and with rifle, displaced the 
election of officers, and delivered their hun- 
dreds of votes, and in a place where there 
were but fifty-three voters, casting over six 
hundred ? Did they protect the ballot-boxes 
when they went there on the 15th of Decem- 
ber, and broke up the meeting at Leaven- 
worth ? Did they protect the ballot-boxes on 
the 15th of January, when Brown was mur- 
dered in revenge for standing by the ballot- 
boxes, and protecting it against them ? 

Sir, men aided to go there by the Emigrant 
Aid Society have never — no, sir, never — at 
any time, or on any occasion, interfered with 
the freedom of voting. 

" Whatever record leaps to light, 
They never can be shamed." 

Sir. I see that in the South there are move- 
ments from all quarters to get up Emigrant 
Aid Societies. The Senator from Mississippi, 
[Mr. Beown,] always frank and manly on 
these questions, proposes that Mississippi shall 
send three hundred of her young men and 
three hundred of her bondmen into that Ter- 
ritory, to plan and shape its future. 1 say to 
the honorable Senator from Mississippi, send 
your Mississippi young men and your Missis- 
sippi bondmen ; you will never find on the 
part of the men who went there from the 
North, under the auspices of Emigrant Aid 
Societies, one single unlawful act to keep you 
out or rob you of one of your lawful rights. 
The men who charge the emigrants from the 
North with aggressions upon the men of 



other sections of the country, utter that which 
has not the shadow of an element of truth in 
it; and they know it, or they are grossly ig- 
norant of Kansas afl'airs. This proposition of 
the Senator from Mississippi was followed by 
a letter from a Representative from South 
Carolina, [Mr. Brooks,] offering to give $1 00 — 
one dollar for every man they will send from 
his section. I say to the Senators from South 
Carolina, that if the offer of their colleague in 
the other House is accepted, and if the hun- 
dred men go from South Carolina to Kansas, 
they will never be interfered with in the exer- 
cise of their legal rights, by the men who 
have gone there from New England or from 
the North. 

Atchison, the organizer and chief of those 
border movements, thus appeals to the citizens 
of Georgia to come to the rescue, for " KAN- 
SAS MUST HAVE SLAVE LNSTITUTIONS, 
OR MISSOURI MUST HAVE FREE INSTI- 
TUTIONS." 

He continues : 

"Let your j"oung men come forth to Mis- 
' souri and Kansas. Let them come well 
' armed, and with money enough to support 
' them for twelve months and determined to 
' see this thing out. 1 do not see how we are 
' to avoid civil war. Come it will. Twelve 
' months will not elapse before war, civil war, 
'of the fiercest kind, will be upon us. We 
' are arming and preparing for it ; indeed, we 
' of the border counties are prepared. We 
' must have the support of the South. We 
' are fighting the battles of the South. Our 
' institutions are at stake. We want men — 
' armed men. We want money. Let your 
' young men come on in squads, as fast a3 
' they can be raised, icell qrmed:' 

Atchison's Lieutenant, Stringfellow, calls 
upon the South to come to the aid of Missou- 
rians who have dictated law to Kansas, and 
" can do it again." The Moliile A'ews assures 
the South that Atchison, Stringfellow, and 
their lawless followers, "have been the only 
means, under God, of teaching such miscreants 
as the editor of the Missouri Democrat and his 
Lawrence friends, that the way to the aboli- 
tionizing of Missouri and Kansas is a road of 
reddest blood for them ' to travel.' " 

Sir, to appease the unhallowed desires of 
the Slave Propaganda, you complied with 
Atchison's demands, and repealed the Missou- 
ri Prohibition. You then told the laboring 
men of the Republic, whose heritage you thus 
put in peril, that they could shape, mould, 
and fashion, the institutions of those future 
Commonwealths. Animated by motives as 
pure and aims as lofty as ever actuated the 
founders of any portion of the Globe, the sons 
of the North wended their way to this region 
beyond the Mississippi. These emigrants did 
not all go there under the auspices of Emi- 
grant Aid Societies, for it is estimated that 
not more than one-fourth of the settlers of 
Kansas are from New England and New York 
that nearly one-half of the dwellerB in that 



16 



Territory are from Pennsylvania and the 
Northwest. 

Only about one-fourth of the actual resi- 
dents of Kansas are from the slaveholding 
States, and many of these settlers from the 
South, perhaps a majority of them, are in fe- 
vor of making Kansas a free State. That 
many of these emigrants from the South are 
in favor of rearing free institutions, will sur- 
prise no one who understands their condition. 
j\Iost of these emigrants are poor men, and 
have felt in their native homes the malign in- 
fluences which bear with oppressive force 
upon free labor. Thirty-five per cent, of the 
emigration of the slave States has sought 
homes in the free States, while less than ten 
per cent, of the emigration from the free States 
and from the old world find homes in the 
slave States, although those States embrace 
the largest as well as the fairest regions of the 
country east of the Rocky Mountains. 

Coming irom fields blasted by the sweat of 
artless, untutored, unpaid labor — from regions 
once teeming with the products of a prolific 
soil, now "exhibiting," to quote the language 
applied " with sorrow " to his native country, 
by the Senator from Alabama, [Mr. Clay,] 
" the painful signs of senility and decay, ap- 
parent in Virginia and the Carolinas " — wit- 
nessing the prosperity of free, educated labor, 
many of these sons of the South meet the 
men of the North, and stand with them, 



shoulder to shoulder, in upholding the insti- 
tutions of Freedom. 

Within the Territory, the men of the North 
and the men of the South meet together in 
council. Northern and Southern men stood 
side by side in those assemblages of the peo- 
ple that put the brand of condemnation upon 
the acts of the Legislature imposed upon 
them. Northern and Southern men sat in 
council in that Constitutional Convention the 
Senator from Connecticut now pronounces 
"spurious," and Northern and Southern men 
stood side by side in the trenches of be- 
leaguered Lawrence. "■ 

Leave these men now in Kansas, free from 
Missouri forays and Administration corrup- 
tion, and in spite of the inhuman, unchristian, 
and devilish acts to be found in the past 
legislation of the Territory, they will bring 
Kansas here as they have done already, robed 
in the garments of Freedom. Men of the 
South, you who would blast the virgin soil 
of Kansas with the blighting, withering, con- 
suming curse of Slavery — you, who would 
banish the educated, self-dependent, free labor- 
ing men of the North, to make room for the 
untutored thriftless, dependent bondmen of 
the South — vote down the Free State men of 
Kansas, if you can ; but do not send " border 
ruffians " to rob or burn their humble dwell- 
ings, and murder brave men for the crime of 
fidelity to their cherished convictions. 



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